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Combining business and pleasure

The US Customs and Border Protection declaration form asks the question: “The primary purpose of this trip is business: YES/NO.”

Most business travellers find that it is only once in a while that they are able to combine the two. Usually school holidays are the limiting factor, and trips to desirable places rarely coincide with summer breaks.

The chemical conferences in the best holiday locations are always Methanol and Fertilizers. They don’t shrink away from tropical beach resorts in the way that mainstream petrochemical conferences do. But even methanol and fertilizer conference-goers aren’t always able to have their families join them after the event, even if they wanted to.

If the purpose of a business trip is at all stressful, then there is really no point in trying to tack a weekend mini-break on in the days beforehand. The anxiety of the impending meeting or presentation casts a cloud over the whole weekend. Much better is to have the R&R after the event, especially if it has gone well and there is some well-earned elation that it is all over.